The American Health Care Association is expected to announce today six new quality metrics, some of which raise the bar on nursing home staff turnover and hospital readmissions.

The new metrics also are expected to prioritize organizational success, short term/post-acute care, and long-stay/dementia care.

Among the new quality goals AHCA members will be asked to achieve over the next three years:

 

  • Reducing nursing staff turnover by 15% or maintaining a turnover rate of 40% or lower;
  • At least 25% of AHCA members measuring and reporting long-stay resident and family satisfaction and/or short-stay satisfaction using the Core-Q survey; and
  • Safely reducing the number of hospital readmissions by another 15%, or maintaining a readmission rate at 10% or lower.

Reduction of antipsychotic use in long-term care is considered one of CMS’s earliest achievements in the agency’s Quality Improvement Organization program. According to quality data compiled last month, 19.2% of long-stay nursing home residents were receiving an antipsychotic medication in the third quarter of 2014, compared with 23.9% in the fourth quarter of 2011 — a net decrease of 19.4%.

A recent QIO report noted several other nursing home quality improvement benchmarks.